by Karine Green
"Things seem to be moving forward with the villagers. I was thinking about heading out to find the White Witch," he said, craning his neck to look at Misty.
"You aren't really going to bite her, are you?"
Mack shook his head. "I did seriously consider it though. But, dragons shouldn't bite people. I'll hear what she has to say, and then decide whether to file charges against her for pup-napping me."
"Seculars!" A village boy came running into the training yard with his arms flapping. "Scouts saw them coming, about five thousand of them, same ones from last year. They'll take our harvest again as a tribute. They are about a day and a half out. Chancellor Fabian is readying the men. He wants to know where the dragons stand."
Méi flew in and landed next to the arrow stock. "Reload both quivers."
Suki jumped off, grabbed arrows, and stuffed them in her quivers.
"Woo-hoo, I can't wait to really put our dragon/rider partnership to work," Méi said, almost hopping. "Those seculars are in for it."
Mack flew in next to her, and Misty slid down to reload. He was so much taller now he had to lay down like a Sphinx for her to get back in the saddle. This would be a test of their ability to leave the village, find the White Witch, and start reunification of Shestafa.
"Grab the extra crossbow too, and a couple of the new harpoons," Mack said.
"I love the harpoons you made to replace the dragons' lance," Misty said, grabbing four of them. She reloaded her quivers and climbed back in the saddle.
"We have a secret weapon. Misty and I will be right back."
Méi smiled at him.
He winked back at her as he glided off toward their barn. He no longer bothered to remember what it was like to be human anymore. As long as his wife woke up next to him every morning, he would never be forgotten again. The villagers never forgot him; if anything they could back off a bit. He landed outside his living room window. Misty ran in and immediately came back out with a small burlap sack.
"Ready," she said, locking herself back in the saddle. They flew back to the training ground, landing by Romayo.
Méi also walked over to Romayo and sat at attention in front of him. "Should we fly out and char them?"
"No, fly out, assess them, and then decide if charring or negotiation is warranted. Perhaps they have heard of the dragon's return and wish to pay respects? We cannot assume what the boy told us is real. What he knows is, what happened last year, prior to your return. While experience warrants heavy consideration, it does not warrant a rash decision, or worse, an assumption. We must have all the facts before we act, it was the way of the Earth Dragons, bless their souls." He crossed himself with the X. "Still, fly out high so they can't reach you. Just in case," Romayo explained, and then he called to the riders. "And you two, put on an extra layer, it gets cold up there." He pointed to the heavy tactical dragon-scale coats that had been reconditioned.
Misty slid down and ran over to the coats, grabbing the one that matched the closest to Mack's scales. Méi watched them put on the coats. Suki finished first and Méi took off when she heard Suki's braces click into place. Misty finished and climbed back into the saddle. They scratched the decking as they took off at full force, close on the heels of Méi and Suki.
Romayo turned to the boy, "Tell Chancellor Fabian, the dragons are taking care of recon, if not the problem entirely."
The boy nodded and ran off.
"Romayo said to come in high," Misty said, leaning into talk into Mack's ears.
He nodded. He was afraid, but something in him needed to confront this small army. They had stolen his life. Fran and Ed had been good to him, but his own mother and father would have been better. He appreciated Misty's help in learning to read, but growing up reading in his own language in his own village would have been nice. Instead, he’d been forgotten no matter where he went. He couldn't even go to the zoo without the glaring memory of being forgotten.
They stabbed my beautiful mother and loving father in their brains while they slept. They would do that to me too, just like they did to my brothers and sisters. They have taken too much, and they will pay...Right now.
Suki pointed. "There, I can see the army coming over the ridge."
"It is amazing how far away everything is when you have to walk over the mountains and down into the valleys. Something that appears to be a mile away was really a two-day walk," Misty said.
"It's just a few minutes’ flight for us," Méi said, her tone sounding more like the dragon he had met when he first arrived.
Mack felt Misty mount the crossbow. Please let Méi stay the happy young dragon she has been over the last year. Don't let her become battle-hardened.
As they flew in they saw that some men were trailing hot air balloons, with archers in them; and they were nocking arrows on them.
"What are those?" Méi asked, pulling up to fly higher and tighter to Mack.
Misty laughed, "They don't have a chance of hitting us. So, other than to stupidly state their intention to attack, what were they thinking?”
“I think this puts them in the char them category,” Méi said, with a slight gurgle that suggested she was preparing to breathe fire in the form of a wide blast and not a narrow tube.
"No doubt," Suki agreed. "They float those things up high, out of range, and then shoot down in the village. They began using them about three years after the start of the Great Losing when the dragons were no longer a threat."
Mack smiled. "They are a tactical mistake, a grave one. I'll blow them, and then you burn them. Trust me, hot air balloons will go up in flame like tissue paper," he said.
Suki readied her crossbow. "They have no idea dragons have returned and are defending Blue Valley. They are either really bad at recon, which I doubt, since they have successfully invaded the village before, or they were set up."
“The idea of putting hot air balloons up against a dragon with hurricane force winds is suicide, and that is not even considering what the fire-breathing dragon will do.” Méi laughed, sounding almost demonic as she readied her dragon’s breath.
“Set up or not, we have to stop them,” Mack said, banking slightly to the left to give Méi plenty of room.
“They are going down hard." She looked back at Suki, "Get your bow ready, as soon as he blows them out of control, we're gonna buzz the tower as Mack calls it."
Suki nodded, her bow already in her hand. Mack smiled, No one was going to hit her dragon while she had breath in her. She would happily die to protect Méi.
Mack drew in his breath, and with all his might he roared. The men on the ground were already scattering. If they didn’t know the dragons were back before, they knew there were dragons now.
The arrows were blown off course. The balloons collapsed, rocketing to the ground, and covering some of the men on the ground trying to escape. Not only that, but in his breath, the flames from the balloons made little tornadoes that burned everything in their paths. The tornadoes ran about three hundred yards before dissipating.
"Well that was a disturbingly fortunate side effect. We just took out more than half of the invading army on our own." He looked back at Misty. "Light and drop the Molotov's over those." She did as she was told over the larger catapults. As she did, he blew them and the wooden catapults were incinerated, no differently than if Méi had breathed fire on them. A cluster of huge, hellish tornadoes incinerated the catapults, sending the enemy soldiers- who could escape- running back toward Yellow Hollow.
Méi came in low and scorched the ground the soldiers were trying to escape to.
Suki cheered. "If your enemy tries to go to ground, leave no ground to go to," she said, firing on an archer trapped in the middle of the fires. He was pulling a long bow in Méi's direction. She took him out easily.
Méi nodded in agreement. She landed and blew flames along the ground, incinerating the slowest soldiers as they tried to run away from the patch of scorched earth. Suki used her crossbow to snipe the remaining soldiers w
ho were brave, or crazy enough to stay and fight. She effectively defended Méi, as she destroyed the rest of the army, along with the entire area. No one would cross this valley unnoticed for a while. Every acre of it was scorched, with a complete view of the little valley. An army crossing here would be in a fishbowl. It would be difficult if not impossible to launch a sneak attack from this direction- until the vegetation grew back.
Mack flew down lower and blew the wind over the flames, causing them to flare up, trapping some of the fleeing soldiers. They landed in front of them, blocking their escape route.
Misty nailed one in the heart as he drew his sword. “Drop your weapons, now,” she commanded the remaining soldiers.
The others dropped their weapons and put their hands up.
"You will return to your lands and tell them never to come back to Blue Valley again; ever. Or you can die right here, right now. We will not trade with you. We will not negotiate with you. We will not invade your lands, but you will keep to them, or we will crush you and all who have known you," Mack said, with a deep growl in his voice.
One of the soldiers dropped his hands and stepped forward. "We came to take our share of the harvest. Our people will starve."
Another soldier shoved the kneeling one out of the way. "We have not seen dragons in more than eight years. It didn't occur to us that dragons had come back to Blue Valley as guardians."
Mack ignored the comment, and focused on the first man. "Your share? As if you somehow contributed to the work that led to our harvest" He growled again. "The people of Blue Valley will starve! They are my priority. We value life. If you had come to us in good faith, we may have been able to trade. But you simply took what you wanted, not what you needed, and certainly more than the people of my village could spare. May I suggest a program on how to train your people to grow food?"
"We need that food, and your shed claws and horns," The first man said, standing up. "As payment for the cost of having to invade..."
Méi snorted little sparks at his feet. "How is it our problem that you invested in an ill-conceived and expensive military campaign?"
The man danced away from her sparks, but as he spun he said, "We cannot leave without that food."
"There are five of you, against two trained dragon riders," Méi said, jumping up high and landing behind them. "You will leave, and be glad this was all you suffered. I could have flown over and burned your entire village to the ground, and then urinated on it so no one or nothing could live there because it would keep catching fire. There are no bitches like pissed off, fire-breathing dragon bitches." She lowered her head, and growled at them, looking more like the old Méi that Mack had first met than the dragon who was his wife.
"General. These aren't just any dragons. They are Elementals," a soldier said from the back.
The general looked around at the devastation. "Oh, do you think so! Because I was unaware that only Elementals breathed hurricanes of fire as a weapon of mass destruction. Don't be idiotic. Of course, they are Elementals!" The general nearly spit on the man as he spoke. His cheeks growing redder and redder.
Méi reared behind them. "Shall I blast them? They are the last five."
"I was just considering it." Mack looked thoughtful for a moment. All five men looked at him, wide eyed. "Do you think we need someone to go back and warn them not to come anymore, or do you think they will figure it out?" he asked, glaring at them.
Suki shook her head. "I think they will gather a larger army and return. We should crush them while we have the opportunity."
Mack gave Suki a double take. She was so much like Méi, except she had not moved forward in her anger management as far as Méi had. She remembered and held onto the bitterness of the invasion of her village, and the invasions of Blue Valley. She would happily burn a path straight to Yellow Hollow before incinerating it, and everyone in it.
The general stared at them for a moment. "There isn't anyone, except women and children left. I brought all the men. They were hungry, and the valley produces so much," he said. "Please don't kill them." He gestured to his remaining men, and dropped to his knees.
Another man pushed the general. "Maybe it would be better if they did. It doesn't seem to have hit you yet; you just led all of the men to their deaths. You planned the invasion badly and did not listen to the reports of dragons. Once this reality sets in to your stupid brain, dragons will be the least of your worries."
"Back down," Mack said, blowing the man over, then he smiled. "So we could easily take the village if it is undefended."
Misty snorted. "You, my darling dragon are the only male here. This army was just obliterated by a female majority defending army. And you, my love, are not riddled with arrows because your female rider eliminated the archers, which allowed you to save Blue Valley. Never underestimate what a woman will do to protect her home, especially if there are children in it. The village is not unprotected; not by a long shot."
Méi and Suki nodded in agreement.
Méi spoke up, "Should we go burn their village to the ground, and eliminate any possibility of a threat to Blue Valley?" She pointed over the ridge in the direction of Yellow Hollow with her tail.
Suki and Misty nodded their agreement.
"We should burn it to the point that we can make charcoal seasoning from its remains, for our delicious and plentiful steaks," Suki said, rubbing in the fact that Blue Valley did indeed have plentiful and diverse food.
The general looked as if his mind was reeling as his remaining four men dropped to their knees swearing to never return. He regained his composure. "Killing us doesn't seem very spiritual of you. Elemental Dragons are the rock of the Spirituals' religious faith. Isn't there a harm none commandment?"
Méi nodded. "I am very hungry right now. And these men look well fed."
Mack was shocked at her, and so was Suki, given the look that just flew across her face. Méi shook her head as if to force the thought from her mind. He wondered if anything was wrong with her.
He refocused and snorted hard, blowing all five men over onto their rear ends, leaving them sprawled out in an undignified manner. A sudden anger filled him because they had the nerve to complain about losing the very thing that had been ripped from him. "You systematically worked to destroy us. The command to harm none does not include allowing oneself to be harmed, or murdered. We are not pacifists!" He whipped the general with his tail, easily knocking his legs out from under him as he was trying to stand up again. "This conversation just got boring." He turned to Méi, "Do what you will," he said flying off. She looked like she could use a snack anyway, maybe she wasn't too far off base with her comment.
He returned to the training grounds and landed directly next to Romayo and Fabian who both looked worried.
"Where's Méi?" Fabian squeaked out in a high-pitched voice with both hands propped under his chin.
Mack smiled. "I didn't mean to scare you. She is helping the remaining five soldiers understand the importance of staying out of Blue Valley."
Romayo made a face. "They only sent five? But I thought..."
"The others will never again invade anything. They are put to rest."
Both men nodded, looking somber as they crossed themselves in an X, but it was Fabian who said, "We are grieved for the loss of life, but it had to be done. We needed them to stop killing us every year with their harvest invasion. Almost seventy-five children and elders died last year from weakened immune systems caused by being undernourished."
Mack nodded, then shook his head "It was too easy, they had hot air balloons against a dragon...any dragon could have easily taken them out, let alone against the combined dragon magic of an Air and Fire Dragon. They were dead before they left Yellow Hollow..."
"They had not laid down yet," Misty finished his thought, dismounting, and taking the heavy tactical jacket off.
Romayo frowned. "Are you saying it was a trap?"
"Maybe not a trap, but an intelligence gathering maneuver." Mack s
hrugged, "Someone set the General up, or allowed false information to find its way to his ear, because at least one of his soldiers had heard of the dragon's return."
Fabian shrugged. "Well, they are Seculars."
"Yes, and the term misguided is not to be confused with stupid," Romayo said. "Fabe, we have to make sure the men are ready, just in case."
"For what, the Yellow Hollow threat is gone."
Mack nodded in agreement with Romayo, "For the main divisions of the Mad King's army, I will go out on a limb and suggest that the Mad King allowed Yellow Hollow's infantry to fall as a way to confirm, without a doubt, that dragons have returned to Blue Valley. We also showed them what type of dragons we have, and how many."
Fabian looked like Mack had just blown him over. "But we only have two dragons, against legions of battle harden soldiers; some mounted on Stone Dragons who are loyal to the Mad King. Stone Dragons, even though they don't fly would be immune to Méi's magic."
Mack nodded, frowning. "We need to ready the men who are of military age, and step up the dragon training schedule to include fighting with an army, as opposed to against one. When the big attack comes, we cannot up-heave our own allies."
Both Romayo and Fabian nodded. "Indeed."
"We also need to expand Wester's shop. Those crossbows will be invaluable for our men." Mack sighed as lightly as he could to avoid a mini windstorm. "I need to see the White Witch. I want to stay home and finish getting my barn settled, but all of the Elementals must be reunited, or my barn won't be mine for long. We need a Water and Earth Dragon–at minimum."
Fabian looked like Mack had struck him in the chest with his tail horns. "Great Dragon, no! You cannot leave us. Please."
"Chancellor, we need her. She must know where more dragons are hidden. Finding her is all important." Mack was worried about leaving Blue Valley unprotected against an army prepared to fight dragons, but sometimes what one didn't know, could hurt a person-badly. And right now, they didn't know if they had other potential dragon allies. "The White Witch doesn't have essential information, it is quintessential. The Valley will be crushed without a united dragon support team of all four elements. If I have studied my magic scrolls correctly then all the enemy had to do was use Water and Earth, since they now know the Valley only has Fire and Air.”